Meta's Forum App Goes Live in the US With New Recognition Role

Meta has made Forum, its dedicated app for Facebook Groups, available for download in the US on iOS and Android, roughly four months after testing began in May. The app syncs with a user's existing Facebook Groups and rolls out new features aimed at surfacing firsthand community knowledge — changes that group admins and community managers should track closely.

The most consequential update for practitioners is a new recognition role now testing on Forum in the US and on Facebook globally. It replaces Meta's previous contributor badges and the group expert role, consolidating member recognition into a single designation that reflects "the quality of a member's contributions and the value they bring to their community."

How the new role works

According to Meta, the role is earned through contributions that genuinely help a community: answering questions, sharing firsthand experiences, offering practical tips and recommendations, and starting conversations that bring people together. It carries a badge and concrete benefits — including posts that publish faster. All posts remain subject to Meta's Community Standards.

Admins control the process. They can grant the role directly to members they identify as top voices, and Meta will also nominate members to help admins spot candidates. Members get notified when they receive the role and can remove themselves at any time.

For community managers, the faster-publishing benefit creates a tangible incentive structure: rewarded members gain a distribution advantage over standard members. Admins running recommendation-driven or advice-heavy groups should decide early how they want to handle nominations, since Meta's own suggestions will shape who gets visibility.

Ask: AI-surfaced answers from real group posts

Forum also houses Ask, a feature that uses AI to highlight existing Facebook Group posts and comments so users get answers "grounded in real experience." It surfaces conversations from groups a user already belongs to, plus public groups they haven't joined — a discovery mechanism that could funnel new members into active communities.

Two new Ask capabilities are testing now. The first, option comparison, pulls together recommendations when users weigh choices — Meta cites picking a running shoe, choosing a gift, or deciding what to read next. The second adds follow-up question suggestions on the Ask home page based on recent searches.

Topic labels for discovery

Forum is also testing topic labels on posts, such as Solo Travel or Korean Food. Tapping a label surfaces more conversations on the same topic. For group operators, labeled content creates another path into their communities beyond search and recommendations — and another reason to keep post content specific enough to classify cleanly.

What Meta has and hasn't confirmed

Meta has confirmed the US rollout of Forum on both app stores, the new recognition role testing on Forum in the US and Facebook globally, the two Ask features, and topic labels — all framed as tests. The company has not announced a timeline for wider geographic availability, nor has it detailed monetization or ad products within Forum. Meta says it will share more on how it is building for admins "in the coming weeks," signaling that admin tooling is the next announcement to watch.

The app is accessible with a Facebook account login, which finds a user's existing groups and suggests new ones. Everything announced remains in testing phase, and Meta's closing line — that it will "share more updates soon" — suggests the feature set will keep evolving before any broader launch.